I’ve just tried it, I couldn’t connect to through some socket, but I at least got that error.

Connect to user@domain.com in putty as the host name. Select SSH, then go to SSH on the side panel and choose “2 only” as preferred SSH protocol. Select open and enter password. Then type “mysql -u user -p” and see what happens. I guess you could try “mysqldump --all-databases -u user -p” to make sure it’s generating output.

I am new here and had a similar problem because I was trying to SSH directly to my MySQL server. Then I SSH’ed to my regular host (e.g., www.mydomain.com) with my user/passwd and got in. Then I could enter the MySQL CLI just by typing “mysql -u username -p -h url_for_the_sql_server dbname”. (e.g., “mysql -u johnsmith -p -h mysql.mydomain.com mysql2005”)

BTW: You have to give the user account the “SSH” privilege in the user management section of panel.dreamhost.com.